Going back over Kiss of the Spider Woman, I noticed a commonality in some of the excerpts I underlined, two in particular:
“…she’s all wrapped up in herself, lost in that world she carries inside her, that she’s just beginning to discover,” (4)
In regards to Molina’s mother: “But she’s got the danger inside, she carries the enemy around inside, it’s that weak heart if hers,” (36)
The first refers to the panther woman in the first movie Molina relays to Valentin. In many ways, when he describes the woman in the film, he actually describes himself. Due to his homosexuality, he has felt like an outsider, he has to discover (or cultivate) the person he is internally. The blank cell gives him an opportunity to truly be himself, it is like an extension of self for both the cellmates because there is nothing there but them.
The second quote is in regards to Molina’s mother and her heart condition. While it is meant in a literal sense—that the danger is in her heart condition—there is still the concept of internality to the quote.
I think this can be seen as another theme within the text—or another concept worth exploring, at least. The internal life of the character. The structure of the novel excludes thoughts, however it hints at the insides being important to a person’s self. It will be interesting to see if this is acknowledged in the film version, or even if others agree with me about its presence in the text.
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Interesting comment. I think that this idea of a tension between external and internal--while quite common in literature--is central to the novel. Not only in the case of Molina, in which the tension between appearance (man, friend) and internal reality (homosexual, woman?, at least temporarily betrayer),or Valentin (a hard revolutionary, but also a sensitive, emotional man), but also in almost every major character in the film stories: the Nazi conqueror is actually working for the French people (obviously only in the "movie"), the butler is a "witch doctor," etc.
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